Behrokh Khoshnevis — contour crafting: automated construction

Behrokh Khoshnevis, a professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Southern California, has spent the last 15 years working on a machine that will “print” buildings. He calls the practice Contour Crafting.

The technology, he says, will be faster than all conventional building methods (including prefab construction), cheaper, and use less energy. It can build whatever you can program into a computer, so it will offer unprecedented design flexibility — right angles, wild patterns, or soft curves.

“Contour Crafting will most probably be one of the very few feasible approaches for building structures on other planets, such as the Moon and Mars, which are being targeted for human colonization before the end of the new century,” says Professor Khoshnevis.